Heart Like a Burning Room
by leahalexis
Summary: Kate Argent is tough because that's what she's been taught. She's a girl—she's always had to be quicker, smarter, meaner. Or she loses. She learned that young. (An attempt at making Kate understandable without also making her sympathetic. Because that look on Tyler Hoechlin's face when Kate has Derek cornered in his own house just wrecks me, every time.)


Kate Argent is tough because that's what she's been taught. She's a girl—she's always had to be quicker, smarter, meaner. Or she loses. She learned that young.

Sure, hunters are supposed to be matriarchal. The women make the decisions, call the shots. But they also live in the real world, and that's not how the real world works.

It's particularly transparent when it comes to her parents. Her father's the one that's really in charge, for all that her mother issues the orders. And Chris, male and many years older, is their father's favorite. Their mother's favorite. Everyone's favorite.

Kate's the mistake.

~/~

She slept around plenty as a teenager, "acting out" she thinks they call it nowadays, but college—college is where she learned how to really use what God gave her. She's always liked sex, liked _men_: the way they smell, the brute strength in their arms, the fur on their chests. Liked them a little too much, maybe. It took awhile to realize sex was just another weapon, another way to have control. College boys were easy; she picked up a swagger that followed her past graduation and right back to Beacon Hills.

She meets Derek for the first time when she's out for a run. He's staring, and he's pretty enough that she looks back. He gives her a cocky smirk, too big for his britches in more ways than one, but when she stops to stretch and flashes him a dirty smile, he flushes red, and she likes it.

She seduces him because he's exactly the sort of stupid high school jock who used to fuck her behind the bleachers and call her slut in the halls, and also because she's bored, back in town staying with her parents because she doesn't have a job yet, and doesn't really want one. She's thinking of trying that whole aimless slacker thing. It's no more than her family expects of her, anyway. Her parents are pushing her to take her responsibility as a hunter more seriously, to take _anything_ more seriously, which—whatever.

His need for her the first time they fuck is naked on his sweet little face, so open and desperate and soft like unmolded clay, and it makes her feel powerful. She's never felt powerful before, not like that.

"I'll take care of you, baby," she coos darkly, and he whimpers underneath her, clenches his fingers on her hips as she begins to move, to ride him. She throws her head back and grinds down hard, feels a vicious thrill when he winces but lets her.

~/~

When it starts, having sex with Derek is a pleasant diversion. That's all it's supposed to be: something that makes her feel good, keeps her mind off how messed up her life is. But after a while it becomes more like a crutch.

Feeling anxious about the future? Pick Derek up after school and blow him in the parking lot. Pissed at her parents? Let Derek fuck her in her childhood bedroom while mom and dad eat dinner downstairs.

Derek looks at her like she's the center of his universe and she laps it up like milk.

She's been fucking around with him for a month before she realizes he's a werewolf—before she bothers to learn his last name. By then, she's too addicted to being wanted like that to stop just because he's furry. Besides, Derek's pathetically un-dangerous. Like an easily manipulated puppy. He talks about applying to colleges nearby, sneaking looks at her, and she smiles indulgently, knowing it won't matter, because this thing they're doing won't last that long. It's going to destroy him, when she ends it, and she likes the idea of being able to do that to somebody—being able to destroy their world.

He never shifts, when they're together, never shows her what he is, but she's seen werewolves before, and she likes to imagine what he'd look like, with his wolf face on. Usually while she's on top of him, using him to get off—the most dangerous ride in town. It's actually hotter for her, once she knows: the thrill of corrupting a minor dwarfed by the high of taming a wild animal to her hand.

~/~

Then her father finds out. He's waiting for her in the darkened living room when she gets home late one night.

"Katherine," he rumbles as she's easing the door closed. It scares the shit out of her.

"Fuck, _Dad_," she snaps, heart going wild.

"Get in here," he says, low and hard, and he's Gerard Argent, so she does.

She can't see his face, but she can see the outline of his body in the moonlight coming in the window.

"Where were you tonight?" he asks, and she lifts her chin and says, "Nowhere," because she's an adult now.

He's out of his chair and on her so fast she stumbles over her own feet trying to back away. His fingers are biting into her arms as he grips her, eyes glowing with fury.

"_Tell me what you're doing with that wolf_," he growls.

It brings back all the other times she's made him so mad he lost control—brings back barked orders over holidays when her friends were going to the mall and eating junk food and she was training, brings back ever other time he grabbed her, shook her, just a little too hard.

"It's not what you think," she gasps out, through the pain. "Please, daddy. You're hurting me."

He just squeezes tighter. "Then what is it, Katherine?"

She's always been a quick thinker. She stammers out something about gaining Derek's trust, about finding out more about his family. When they'd be home. When they'd be out. Learning their patterns, so that she could use that information against them. So she could take care of Beacon Hills' werewolf problem once and for all.

"I swear, daddy, I swear I was going to tell you, I just needed more first." She's shaking, tears streaming down her face, and she can't stop. "I didn't want you to be disappointed in me. I wanted you to be proud of me."

Slowly, his grip loosens. "In that case," he says, calm now, even as her sobbing breaths still echo in the room, "let's go wake your mother."

~/~

They hire other people to do the dirty work, of course. But that doesn't mean they can't watch.

The house is beautiful in its destruction, incandescent, flames dancing across the night sky. They're at a safe distance, but she can still hear the screams.

"They're just animals, Katie," her father says from beside her, eyes gleaming as the fire burns. She knows he's right. But she can feel something burning inside her, too, curling up into nothing.

When it's done, Gerard puts an arm around her shoulders as he leads her to the car, talks about the next stage of her training, and something else inside her unfurls like a flower, greedy for the sun.

~/~

She's never sure if he actually believed her, about Derek. But it doesn't matter, not after that.

After that, _she's_ the favorite.


End file.
